5′6″ in cm = 167.64 cm

5′6″ in centimeters, worked out

Five feet six inches is 66 inches (5 × 12 = 60, plus 6). Multiplying by 2.54 gives 167.64 cm, or about 1.68 m. Because the inch is defined as exactly 0.0254 meters, a definition the US National Institute of Standards and Technology traces to the 1959 international yard and pound agreement, this value is exact.

In whole centimeters, 5′6″ rounds to 168 cm. That rounding is worth noticing, because 168 cm converts back to 66.14 inches and 167 cm to 65.75 inches, and both round to 5′6″. So when a profile lists someone at 167 or 168 cm, both are consistent with "five foot six." For the metric perspective, see the 168 cm page.

5′6″ is the one height in this range where the decimal-feet version is tidy: exactly 5.5 feet. That causes its own confusion, since people sometimes write "5.6 ft" when they mean 5′6″. The two differ by more than three centimeters.

How 5′6″ ranks among American adults

The CDC's NHANES survey for August 2021 to August 2023 measured standing height in thousands of US adults and published percentiles by sex and age. Interpolating gives:

A 5′6″ woman is taller than about four in five American women. Even among women in their twenties, the tallest age group, she is around the 72nd percentile. At 5′6″ she is about 6.4 cm (2.5 inches) above the median woman, enough to be noticed in a group but well short of the 95th percentile, which NHANES puts at 172.5 cm.

For men, 5′6″ is roughly the 16th percentile overall, meaning about one man in six is this height or shorter. The figure is lower among young men, around the 10th percentile for ages 20 to 29, and higher among the oldest men, around the 35th percentile over age 80. Those age differences combine height loss in later life with the shorter average height of earlier birth cohorts. The height percentile calculator repeats the calculation for any height and age.

The Rockettes' old minimum

For decades, 5′6″ was the entry line for one of America's most famous dance troupes. The Radio City Rockettes required dancers to measure between 5′6″ and 5′10½″ in stocking feet, a deliberately narrow band that helps the precision line look uniform from the audience. In 2022, the company lowered the minimum to 5′5″.

The range has a long history. In the troupe's early years the band ran from 5′2″ to 5′6½″, which put 5′6″ near the top. By the mid-1960s it was 5′5″ to 5′8″. Over roughly a century, then, a 5′6″ dancer moved from the tall end of the line to its shortest permitted height, a neat illustration of how much women's average height rose during the twentieth century.

Models, Napoleon and other famous 5′6″ figures

Twiggy. The British model who became "The Face of '66" at 16 stood 5′6″ (168 cm), and she is credited with changing modeling ideals at a time when agencies rarely signed shorter models. Today, runway norms are taller. The British Association of Model Agents gives 5′8″ to 5′11″ for female models, and fashion models are typically 5′9″ and above, with shorter models often working in commercial and print modeling. A 2014 analysis of glamour model profiles estimated their mean height at 1.68 m, almost exactly 5′6″.

Napoleon. The emperor's name is attached to the "short man" stereotype, but the estimate of his height, about 1.67 m, is just under 5′6″ in modern measure. The famous figure of 5 feet 2 inches was recorded in old French units, which were longer than English inches. Napoleon was roughly average for men of his era, and some historians argue for 1.70 m. British cartoonists, especially James Gillray, did much to popularize the myth that he was tiny. This site lists him at 168 cm.

Others in the catalog. None of the people with dedicated pages on this site is listed at exactly 5′6″, but the wider catalog includes many at 167 to 168 cm: Angela Merkel and Volodymyr Zelenskyy at 167 cm, Kate Winslet at 167.6 cm, and Al Pacino, George Lucas, Penélope Cruz and BLACKPINK's Lisa at 168 cm. Footballer Lionel Messi, at 169 cm, is just half an inch taller.

5′6″ in professional basketball

Spud Webb is the best-known NBA player near this height. Most scouts expected him to end up in Europe or with the Harlem Globetrotters because of his size, which was given as 5′6″ around the 1985 draft. He was picked in the fourth round by the Detroit Pistons, released, and went on to win the 1986 Slam Dunk Contest with the Atlanta Hawks. His listed playing height is usually given as 5′7″ (170 cm); this site's catalog lists him at 168 cm. The longest NBA career by a player listed at 5′6″ or shorter belongs to Muggsy Bogues, who played 14 seasons from 1987 to 2001.

5′6″ around the world

The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration's estimates for adults born in 1996, drawn from measured heights of more than 18.6 million people, show where 5′6″ is typical:

The pattern is the same one that runs through the middle of the height range: a height that is average for women in Northern Europe is close to average for men in South Asia and parts of Latin America. Latvian women born in 1996, at 169.8 cm, are among the tallest women in the dataset, and even there 5′6″ is less than an inch below average.

Growing to 5′6″

The CDC 2000 stature-for-age reference curves, used in US pediatric care for ages 2 to 20, cross 167.64 cm at these ages:

• Boys, median: about 14 years 7 months.
• Boys, 95th percentile: about 12 years 11 months.
• Girls, 95th percentile: about 12 years 11 months.
• Girls, median: never; the median girl levels off near 163.3 cm by age 20.

At age 20, 5′6″ lies around the 75th percentile for young women and the 10th for young men. The curves describe a reference population, not a target; a pediatrician is the right person to interpret any individual child's growth.

Clothing and everyday fit at 5′6″

In US women's sizing, 5′6″ falls squarely in the regular "misses" range. Petite sizes are designed for women about 5′4″ and under, and tall sizes usually begin around 5′8″, so a 5′6″ woman sits between the two specialist ranges and generally finds standard inseams and sleeve lengths close to right. Misses sizing is described as built around a woman of about 5′4″, so a 5′6″ woman with long legs may still find some regular trousers a touch short, especially in cropped styles.

For men, 5′6″ is shorter than the proportions most regular men's patterns are designed for, so trouser lengths and jacket sleeves often need hemming, and some brands offer short lengths. These are practical rather than medical considerations; the fit depends on limb proportions as much as total height.

A century of 5′6″ men

NCD-RisC's birth-cohort estimates show that 5′6″ was close to the average European man barely a century ago. British men born in 1896 averaged 166.9 cm and German men 167.2 cm, both within a centimeter of 5′6″. American men of the same cohort were already taller, at 171.1 cm. By the 1996 cohort, British men averaged 177.5 cm and German men 179.9 cm, roughly 4 to 5 inches more than their great-grandfathers.

Notice how flat the US column becomes after the 1950s, while Germany kept climbing. Japanese men tell another story: those born in 1956 averaged 169.3 cm, about 5′6½″, and the 1996 cohort is only slightly taller.

Partner height when one of you is 5′6″

Couple-height research suggests that a 5′6″ man or woman meets fewer constraints than popular advice implies. In a study of more than 12,500 UK parent couples, Gert Stulp and colleagues found that the man was taller in 92.5% of pairs, slightly more than the 89.8% expected if partners had been matched at random. The authors also found that shorter men and taller women tended to have smaller height gaps with their partners, while shorter women and taller men tended to have larger ones, but these effects were weaker than people's stated preferences would predict. Their overall conclusion was that height preferences translate into actual pairings only modestly.

A 2025 UK study by Dial and Brown adds a social dimension. Among 242 young heterosexual adults, women who placed more importance on a partner's height scored higher on measures of sexist attitudes, and men who described themselves as more traditionally masculine were less willing to accept a taller partner. Ideal height ratios themselves did not track gender-role attitudes. Put simply, how much partner height matters appears to vary from person to person more than any single rule suggests.

Measuring the half inch that matters

Many people hover between 5′5½″ and 5′6½″, a span of just 2.54 cm, so a clean measurement helps. Stand barefoot with heels, buttocks and shoulder blades against a wall, keep your gaze level, and lower a rigid flat object onto the crown. Avoid measuring straight out of bed: a study of schoolchildren in Southampton found stature dropped by about half a centimeter over the morning before stabilizing after roughly six hours. A midday measurement is the fairest figure to report.

5′6″ next to other heights

5′6″ is 2.54 cm above 5′5″ and 2.54 cm below 5′7″. Beside the median US man, at 175.2 cm, it is about 7.6 cm (3 inches) shorter. Next to a 6′0″ partner the gap is 6 inches (15.24 cm), shown on the 5′6″ vs 6′0″ page; against 6′2″ it grows to 8 inches. For any other pairing, the height difference calculator shows both figures to scale.